Various governmental laws and regulations relating to the environment and disposal of materials require that certain manufactured products (e.g., vehicles and household appliances) destined for disposal or recycling of materials must first have their plastic components separated from their metal components, particularly where the metal components are to be remelted. Accordingly, it is essential that companies involved in disposal of products that comprise both plastic and metal components, e.g., automotive vehicle manufacturers or junk dealers specializing in disposal of automotive vehicles, be able to effect separation of plastic components from metal components in an efficient manner. In the case of disposal of automotive vehicles, such plastic items such as door panels, dashboards, ceiling liners, and wall and floor panels need to be detached from metal components such as body frames and panels, doors, and trunk and hatchback lids. In most cases, such plastic components are attached to metal components by screw-type fasteners. Most commonly the fasteners have Phillips-type or socket-type heads to facilitate screwing and unscrewing. However, screw fasteners with heads of some other geometric configuration may also have been used. Regardless of the type of fastener head, heretofore removal of such fasteners has involved use of power-driven screw drivers (as used herein, power-driven screw drivers includes those that are shaped as sockets to fit over and lock to multi-sided heads or are shaped for insertion into multi-sided sockets in the fastener heads).
However, using a screw-driver tool to detach plastic components from other metal or plastic components is unsatisfactory for dismantling vehicles, since that procedure is too slow and costly, particularly in view of the fact that the number of vehicles being scrapped each year numbers in the hundreds of thousands in some countries and in the millions in more populated industrial countries, e.g., the U.S.A. France, Germany, Italy and Japan. In this connection it should be noted that the unscrewing operation requires first that the tip of the unscrewing tool be properly engaged with the fastener head. Secondly, once the tip of the unscrewing tool is engaged with the fastener, additional time is required to unscrew and remove the fastener. From a cost standpoint the time factor becomes critical in the case where the location of the fastener makes it difficult to properly engage the head of the fastener with the tip of the unscrewing tool. The fastener accessing problem is rendered even more difficult in the case where the head of the fastener is in a recessed portion of the surrounding plastic component. In this connection it should be noted that forming a plastic component with one or more recesses sized to receive the head of a fastener is common practice where it is desired that the head of the fastener not detract from the aesthetics of the product or at least that it not be in a position where it may be engaged by and irritate the user or otherwise interfere with use or the lifetime of the plastic component. The typical automobile of today has numerous plastic components with recessed sections for accommodating the heads of fasteners used to attach those components to other components (metal or plastic).